Plea for party quotas to boostnumber of female candidates

A QUOTA system for selection of candidates in national elections is necessary to redress the stark genderimbalance in EU politics, delegates were told.

European Voice

11/19/03, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/12/14, 9:25 AM CET

Across Europe, only 17% of elected representatives in national parliaments are women. Although Nordic countries boast a much higher average, with women accounting for 45% of members in the Swedish parliament, in Greece the number of female MPs is just 8.7%.

Lenita Freidenvall, a political researcher at Stockholm University, who compiled the statistics, told the conference that the picture in some of the biggest member states is “anything but encouraging”. In France and Italy, for instance, only 11% of parliamentarians are women.

The gender balance is more even in the European Parliament, where 31% of MEPs are female. Freidenvall told the meeting, organized by the European Liberal Women’s Network, there are various reasons, including women’s lifestyles, for the current gender imbalance.

“The problem also lies within political parties,” she added. “Women are simply not being selected as candidates in elections in proportion to the number who come forward.”

She believes a quota system would be the most effective way of tackling the problem.

“In some countries, the mere threat of quotas has been enough to spur people into action,” added Freidenvall.

Her comments were echoed by Danish Liberal MEP Lone Dybkjaer, who said: “You have only to look at the family photographs taken at EU summits to see the scale of the problem. In a recent one, there were 64 people on the picture and only eight of them were women.”